


But You're Pretty When You're Mine

by orphan_account



Category: Nabari no Ou
Genre: Gau POV, Light BDSM, Light Sadism, M/M, Masochism, boner jokes, critical levels of fabulous, etymology geekery, gau is a huge nerd, homolust, lots of cooking, misuse of swords, poor fashion choices, so it's not tagged underage, technically gau is the age of consent in japan, terrible references to Catullus poems
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-22
Updated: 2012-05-22
Packaged: 2017-11-05 19:59:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/410425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>lyrics shamelessly borrowed from VAST.  </p><p>Gau and Raikou manage to work some things out.  Set in a post-series universe that borrows from the endings of both the manga and the anime.  (Ie, Raikou is still alive, but Yoite isn't dead yet.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. if you knew how much i loved you, you would run away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [morphogenesis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/morphogenesis/gifts).



The first time Raikou ever kills someone in front of Gau is also the moment they meet, and Gau thinks that the fact that their relationship began with a murder-slash-rescue bodes very ill for how their relationship will end. Gau tries hard not to think about that - he never wants this relationship to end - but as an obsessive data analyst/trivia collector/hobo resident of every library within a ten kilometer radius, a certain amount of mythological superstition has sunk into his encyclopedia psyche. Gau does not walk under ladders and he does not mention certain gods by name and he does not trim his toenails at night; and although he approaches Raikou nine-tenths of the time with a reverence that borders on the fanatic (and, in his lower moments, the sort of live-wire lust that could stop hearts), he is also, one-tenth of the time, wary.

"Gau," Raikou says, serenely, giving him a sweet little tap on the shoulder and then pinching him, painfully hard, on the ear, "enough woolgathering. Have you found what you were looking for?"

"Owwww," Gau whines, petulantly. They are in a bookstore - cluttered, tiny, winding narrow paths between tall shelves painted a sickly shade of candy-floss blue - like Raikou's hair that first cold winter night, oddly fitting as it clashed against the dark red sludge of bloodstains on snow. "Uh..." What was he looking for? Ah, yes, a leisure book. A novel, something to read at the beach - Raikou had been vague and noncommittal about it, but Gau had divined that they were definitely going to the seaside in the near future based on the fact that Raikou had brought home a pair of some really _fantastically hideous_ matching swim trunks.

\- Right, right, a book - Murakami would do - his style of prose was crisp and thin and easy to swallow. (Like batter-fried yakitori - delicious, easy to wolf down, but you couldn't eat too many, you'd get sick. Something a dropout like Gau could read without feeling pretentious.)

"No," Gau admits, scanning the mocking blue undersides of the shelves above his head, a frown distorting his frequently-chewed lower lip. " _Wind-up Bird Chronicles_ should be on the top shelf, is it there?"

"You could have asked for a stool to stand on," Raikou tells him, gently swatting him on the back of his head - well, it looks gentle, but it smarts, and Gau's eyes water as he snarls. He would have argued - _all the employees here are girls, I can't ask a girl for a step stool, I'd never live it down -_ but Raikou is already thumbing through the volumes on the top shelf, extracting the elusive paperback, a tiny little grin on his aristocratic face. "Is this the one?"

"Yeah," Gau says, excitedly. "That's the one. It's supposed to be really good, and it's all about life and modern civilization and people losing control over their lives and there's this one character that Raimei really likes, this girl with a limp, I heard, and she said that when I got to the part with the well I'd totally -"

Raikou thumps the book soundly on top of Gau's head, leaving it to balance there as Gau winces. "We've been here almost an hour," he says, lightly, "and we do need to buy groceries."

"Ow," Gau says again, giving Raikou a pathetic look as he bows his head, lets the novel fall into his hands. "Sorry, Raikou-san. Um, the department store's grocery should still be open by the time we get there - we should take the train - "

Raikou's teasing grin gets just a little bit wider, and Gau thinks that it's just not fair, really, for Raikou to have the ingenious capriciousness, deviousness, and downright cruelty of a _kitsune_ when Gau is the one stuck with the fox-eyes.

"All right, then, Gau," he says, breezily, turning his back and striding off to the cashier, obnoxiously certain that Gau will follow him. "I'll pay for the book and the train fare."

"You don't have to!" Gau protests, clutching the _Chronicles_ in agitated fingers, struggling to keep pace with Raikou's deliberately elongated strides. "This is why I got a part-time job, Raikou-san, so I could -"

"Don't make me embarrass you in front of the staff, Gau," Raikou says, a mocking tenderness steeped heavily into his voice, and Gau shuts up.

_Threatening me while buying me a present_ , he thinks, rolling his eyes. Raikou's gift-giving practices - like his hair, his atrocious fashion sense, his dubious moral code, and even the incomprehensible rescue of Gau, as if he were simply an abandoned animal that needed to be fed, watered, trained to kill - are so very unorthodox. In all things Raikou is a creature of violence - Gau thinks that maybe, possibly Raikou would self-destruct if he didn't have anything to fight, if he didn't have something to batter himself endlessly against, half samurai half psychotic -

"Hurry along, now," Raikou says over his shoulder.

But that isn't something to worry about, Gau chides himself, because there will always be evil in the world, there will always be promise-breakers and cheaters, ninja falling into temptation, and so Raikou will always, always have something to battle. There will _always_ be a direction for Raikou to point his fundamental, chronic violence, and if a little of it leaks into his surroundings, that's fine, because Raikou is a good person the way saints are good people, and if it ever came down to the wire - if for some ludicrous reason they ever ran out of criminals - Raikou wouldn't hurt the innocent. (The guilty, yes, but never the innocent.)

... Nevertheless, Gau is wary. (Of what? he wonders, but does not press.)

* * *

"Do they have candied ginger?" Raikou asks, pouting in a way that Gau finds menacing. "We're out."

_Because you ate all of it in one sitting_ , Gau thinks. He should have expected that Raikou would develop an infatuation with ginger candy as soon as he tried it - Raikou is the sort of adventurous diner who eats wasabi with a spoon and adds powdered habañero peppers to _everything,_ claiming that if he spices his food strongly enough no one ever tries to steal it and besides, spicy foods are beneficial to the constitution - Gau wouldn't care, if he didn't have to eat Raikou's leftovers. "Not in the produce aisle. Maybe with the rest of the candy and snacks," Gau tells him, checking a head of bok choy for signs of insect damage in the leaves - none, thankfully, so into the basket it goes.

Raikou wanders off in the direction of the junk food, and Gau ponders their meals for the next week without distraction. They eat miso soup with rice and green tea every morning like honest, upstanding traditional Japanese samurai - unless Raikou is depressed, in which case Raikou eats hideously colorful breakfast cereals with unhealthy levels of dye and sugar and Gau is too nerve-wracked to eat anything at all - but Gau tries to make it a little less monotonous. He wonders for a few minutes if he should buy bonito flakes or kelp for soup stock, staring at both packages, and then he realizes, with a sense of despair, that he's _seriously considering_ soup stock like it's some sort of _complex metaphysical problem_ , and he remembers he read a newspaper article about pregnant teenaged girls dropping out of high school to become housewives and he thinks _well, at least I'm not pregnant._

"The only kind they have are 1700-en," Raikou says, suddenly appearing behind Gau's left shoulder and giving him a minor heart attack. "In fancy box sets."

"That's ridiculous," Gau says. "It's just ginger and sugar, it'd be much cheaper to make it at home -"

Raikou gets an odd light in his eyes. Gau backtracks furiously.

" - but it'd take, oh, at least seven, maybe ten hours, and it'd be way spicier than the - than the kind you buy in stores..."

And that is how Gau ends up spending his entire Saturday slaving over a hot stove, having surrendered to his fate the moment Raikou said 'please'. It's not a difficult task (four parts sugar, one part water, bring it to a boil and then let it simmer; peel and wash and chop up the ginger, drop it in) it's just a _boring_ one. You come back every forty minutes or so to stir (it keeps the sugar from burning to the bottom of the pot), scrape down the sides, and add a spoonful of water to make up for the evaporation; you burn your fingertips, and you watch with morbid fascination how the ginger slowly stains the syrup a pleasant, rich golden brown over the course of _nine fucking hours_.

By the time Raikou waltzes back into their apartment, carrying a bag of crushed ice and a bag of powdered sugar in either hand (Gau texted him to ask for both, having forgotten to buy them yesterday), not only is the apartment cleaner than it's been for weeks, not only is the laundry washed, dried, folded, and put away, not only is their elaborate dinner perfectly prepared and ready, but Gau is also ready and willing to _murder_ him.

" _Tadaima._ Is the candy done, Gau?" Raikou asks, cheerfully. He's got a plum-colored bruise on his right arm, a long scratch on his left - he seems happy, as if all of his lambent rage has dissipated. "I was in Banten all day."

" _Okaeri._ Yeah, it's almost done, and I'm never going to - hey, you should've asked me to pack you a - wait, you went all the way to Banten?" Banten means Raimei and Miharu (and Gau forgets if Hanabusa's house is technically _in Banten_ , but it's close enough). His heart skips a beat or two.

"I felt the need to test my sister's skills," Raikou tells him, setting the ice and the sugar on the countertop - Gau sagely interprets that to mean _I had nothing to do all day and I thought I'd kick someone's ass and I didn't want you there in case she won._ "She was quite enthusiastic." He offers Gau a supermodel smile, the sort of blissful expression that marketing executives for products like fine wine and imported chocolates would kill to put in a magazine, and just like that Gau forgives him, his rage melting into a little puddle of adoration. That's the trouble with hero-worship/hardcore crushing - everything Raikou does seems wonderful. Gau intended, at the very least, to complain, but -

"Um, you should spread the sugar on a big plate, and pack the ice into a tub," he says instead, and Raikou indulgently obliges him. The candied ginger chunks are dumped on top of the confectioner's sugar and rolled dry; the boiling reddish golden syrup is poured on top of the ice where it cools into a sticky taffy, and then rolled onto flat wooden popsicle sticks, an oozy mess of flavor.

"Mmm. You were right - the taste is stronger. We should share some with the Banten kids," Raikou says, popping a cube into his mouth and chewing. "Yoite might like it."

Gau lets out a sigh he was only half-aware he was holding in. "So Yoite's still -"

"He's taken up knitting," Raikou says, deeply amused. "You should visit." Then he picks up another ginger cube, and Gau thinks _you'll spoil your dinner_ \- but Raikou holds it out in Gau's direction, smiling, eyes just a little too dark. "Open your mouth and say 'aaaah'."

(Somewhere, in the back of Gau's brain, an alarm goes off. _This means something, this is significant.)_

He ignores it, and opens his mouth, staring into Raikou's too-deep eyes. "Aaah -"

(There is something inside of Gau - something that is always straining, arms and spine stretched out to their utmost limit, to _reach_. He does not know what he's reaching for; he knows that the alarm in his head - _beware, beware -_ doesn't want him to attain it.)

Hard, heavy. It tastes fine - the sting of the ginger is a pleasant one. He is aware of the lingering brush of Raikou's fingernails against his lips, and he shivers.

(When Raikou smiles a little wider, shifts the tiniest bit closer, Gau thinks that whatever it is he's been reaching for - whatever it is he's trying to hold on to - is brushing, lightly, against his outstretched hands - almost but not quite within his grasp.)

"Dinner," he tries to say around the ginger.

"It's ready?" Raikou asks, tearing his eyes away from Gau's mouth and glancing, somewhat surprised, at the covered dishes on the table. Absentmindedly, he licks his lips.

Gau nods, chewing. "Yeah. Indian food. Remember when we went to that one take-out place? I asked the chef for the recipes for the stuff you liked." Aloo chole - that's chickpeas in sauce - and mattar paneer, cottage cheese with peas - and naan with coconut and raisins baked inside of it, as well as a heaping bowl of basmati rice with cloves and a stick of cinnamon for taste. Rich, but not _expensive_ ; they're not exactly rolling in money, so Gau rarely cooks meat. He made a lot - Raikou does behave like a wise elder brother/mentor/knight, but he still eats like a teenager. "I made it pretty spicy, but if you think it's too mild, there's stuff on the table."

Raikou pauses, and then lays a hand gently on top of Gau's head, smiling as if all of his pain, his bitter violence, has momentarily melted, like a brief glimpse of blue in an overcast sky. (Gau finds it a test of willpower to look away from Raikou's crooked grin, his lips.) "Well done, Gau."

Gau swallows his half-chewed ginger in one painful, deliriously happy lump.

"W-well, you know I live to serve, Raikou-san," he says, blushing like a ripe tomato, half joking half _really not joking_ , not in the slightest, but hey, he can laugh at his own idiosyncrasies. "I mean, it wasn't really that difficult, just some of the ingredients were a little hard to find, and, uh, I thought it'd be okay to be a little more elaborate with cooking because you - uh, we - we don't have any jobs lined up, so it's not like I was taking time away from vital research - although, I probably could've spent a little more time studying -"

"Shut up, Gau," Raikou says, gently, pressing a long thumb over Gau's lips, and Gau shuts up in a _hurry,_ because Raikou is touching him, touching him, and the alarm in his head (and in his heart) also, mercifully, shuts up. Gau doesn't want to have to think about anything, right now. He just wants to memorize the way that it feels to have Raikou's hand on his face before -

As if remembering reality, Raikou jerks his hand back, and laughs, heading to the table and sitting down. "Let's eat," he suggests, with his usual subdued aura of perpetual amusement, and Gau wonders why Raikou isn't looking him in the eyes anymore, chalks it up to his idol's flawless sense of propriety, and obeys.

" _Itadakimasu,"_ Gau says, eyes lowered to stare at his own empty white plate.

" _Itadakimasu,"_ Raikou says, and because Gau's head is respectfully bowed, he does not notice that Raikou is staring at him while he says it.

* * *

What would he do without Raikou?

Well, that's kind of a moot point, Gau thinks, because without Raikou he probably would have died, beaten to death in a dark alley, body eventually surfacing in the local morgue to be burned with a tag on his toe and an ugly split lip. But, assuming he had survived, purely for the sake of argument: what would he do?

Gau likes to think that he would've kept his chin up, but he knows that that's a self-indulgent delusion. He would not, in all likelihood, have scraped the cash together to be self-sustaining; he would, probably, have gone mad, railing against a world too cruel and too unjust, starving on the unfriendly street corners that reek of garbage and despair and sobbing himself to sleep, slowly freezing to death. He is a cheerful person, a fighter, but in the face of _they killed your mother and they're going to kill you and no one, no one is going to help you_ , well, being cheerful can only take you so far.

It makes him uneasy to contemplate it, actually – like trying to imagine life without your lungs, or spine, or some other, deeply fundamental, thing. That which is essential is, in Gau's case, actually quite visible to the eyes; Raikou is his first and last thought every day, Raikou is his dreams, Raikou is the smell of home and the surcease of loneliness, the eternal companion, the bloody hand in his. The sun, and Gau is the moon, living on borrowed light.

And Raikou can't get rid of him because Gau will follow him, dog his heels right into Hell. That's probably a little unhealthy, indicative of a disturbed mind, a traumatic childhood – but so is murder, and though Raikou may be responsible for inspiring large swathes of Gau's perversities, homicide is not one such.

Because even without Raikou's dubiously positive influence, Gau would have at least _tried_ to kill the fucker who orphaned him. And he knows now, from the seat of weary experience, that he probably would've died like an animal.

(They are not identical by any means, but in their sense of what justice is, what justice _means_ , they are kindred proponents of _eye for an eye_.)

So that's the answer, he guesses, to that stupid hypothetical.

( _And what will you do if Raikou dies?_ Follow, naturally.)

* * *

Somehow or another – between breakfast and lunch the following day – they decide to invite "the Banten kids" to the beach along with them, and so Gau is the proud bearer of that invitation when he finally arrives at Hanabusa's house ( _not_ Thobari's house, he refuses to think of it that way.)

"So, we're going to the beach," he says, casually, after a few rounds of Old Maid, as Raimei eats a peach and Miharu feeds thin peach slices to a silently knitting Yoite (and Yoite is kind of adorable to watch, honestly, as he knits and purls and bites into the peach slices without really noticing what Miharu is up to). "You guys could come along if you want. It's still a little cold for swimming, but it should be fun."

"A whole beachfront to ourselves," Miharu points out, nudging at Yoite's thin lips with an aura of distraction, "would be kinda nice." Yoite blinks, and gets a befuddled look on his face, as if he has no idea what's going on.

"Sure, whatever, I'll come, I got this really cute bikini," Raimei says, tossing her hair over her shoulders and smiling at Gau, and for a moment Gau can see Raikou in her face and it makes his heart lurch in interesting, confusing ways. "I hear that models have to like, wear swimsuits in the middle of winter, and they're a bunch of anorexic _pansies_. So I figure if they can handle it, I'll be fine, you know? It's not even that cold."

"Yes," Miharu says, very decisively, staring at Yoite's face. "Let's go to the beach." Gau realizes, when Yoite shrugs and nods, that Miharu enunciated so clearly because he was trying to let Yoite read his lips, and almost goes misty-eyed, because Gau is and always has been a sucker for that sort of romantic drivel; he plays it cool, and only sniffles a little bit.

"It's okay if I invite Minami-chan and Saraba too, right?" Ramei asks, and Gau's analytical brain thinks _how neat, three and half of each gender_ and then he wants to belabor himself with the nearest item of carefully-selected home decor, which happens to be a tasteful urn. He's not supposed to know that Yoite is – is _like that_ , in the first place – he overheard a conversation he shouldn't have between Yukimi and Kazuho – and besides, Yoite acts like a guy, so Gau is probably supposed to roll with that, except maybe it's something that he's just not supposed to think about one way or another and – and if Raikou were here he would've already decked him for over-thinking this, so Gau bites the inside of his cheek and calms down.

"Th-that would be great," he says, his voice a strained croak, standing up to leave; Raimei stands up with him, apparently appointing herself to the task of seeing him to the door. "I'll let Raikou-san know." And he exits, Raimei in his wake, to a small chorus of brief 'see you laters'.

"That'll be some fun, huh," Raimei muses, following him into the genkan, stepping from side to side in her bare feet on the chilly stone, sliding the door shut behind them to prevent a draft. "I might win against Raikou twice in a row."

"It was a fluke victory. Once in a lifetime," Gau tells her, not precisely sure why he feels the need to defend Raikou's honor, and she laughs and slaps him heartily on the shoulder.

"You two are so darn _cute,"_ she tells him, and then wrinkles her nose in a way that looks better when it's happening on Raikou's face, in Gau's totally unbiased opinion. "Two couples, huh... Maybe Miharu will let the rest of us have a turn babying Yoite if we distract him – you think Miharu would like beach volleyball?"

(A bunch of clashing mythologies all insist that Raimei just stepped far, far over some invisible line - you can't go around _giving things names_ like that, it makes them _real,_ or, possibly a worse alternative, if he tries to put a name on his relationship with Raikou it might disappear altogether.)

"Wh-what are you talking about?" Gau asks her, trying not to panic.

"Beach volleyball," she says, deadpan, and slaps him on the shoulder again. "You're right, Miharu doesn't seem the type." Carefree and merry, she steps back inside, and leaves havoc behind her.

In a way, Gau's presentiments of doom are entirely justified. All it takes is one careless remark, and the barrier in his brain dissolves.

* * *

Gau is ninety-nine-percent certain that he and Raikou are not, as Raimei suggests, a _couple_ , at least not in the romantic sense; they live together, they eat together, they share a bathroom (Raikou uses some really inexplicable types of toothpaste, sometimes, like, he'll mix together the sparkly orange flavor and the shiny bubblegum flavor, but Gau sticks to boring mint), they know each other's habits and moods, read each other's expressions, and _damn_ Raimei for bringing it up because it was hard enough for Gau to stifle those wayward desires already.

(Desires for what, exactly, he's not certain. Sex, love, intimacy, all that, of course, but something _else._ There is an intense endorphin rush whenever Raikou, for example, puts him in a headlock, but that's just the oxygen deprivation, and it probably has nothing to do with the pieces of his heart that scream _yes, yes, my life in your hands –_ nothing at all.)

They aren't a couple and Gau is okay with that – he has to be okay with that.

But when Raikou grins, in that lazy, perfect way of his, as he orders Gau to pack for a trip to the seaside, the flush of ridiculous joy that leaps to Gau's face is difficult to control. Oddly enough, it is not the moments of terse quiet and barked commands that push Gau's buttons the most, but rather the warm, sweet afternoons between jobs when Raikou has nothing to do but needle him, gentle-rough as the ocean tides, stinging happily like saltwater. So it's not a perversion, Gau tells himself: it's just how he responds to Raikou-san, out of – oh, call it love.

Today, after a stiflingly silent car ride (Yukimi dropped them off, handed them a package with instructions to give it to Yoite, and then ran away as if scalded) they are all finally at the beach, and Gau has wandered close to the cold slap of the waves, the wet sand chilly beneath his bare feet. The salty sea air makes him think of fresh fish and saltwater taffy. Predictably, Miharu and Yoite have wandered off alone together, and Raimei and the other girls are building sand castles much farther from the water; Kouichi might show up later, but he might not. For Gau, the ocean is an invitation to brood, a trap full of metaphors he finds hard to ignore, such as -

_The love I bear for you is far deeper than the seas are deep._ Gau has never been on a boat, but he can imagine the unbearable vastness of the water, and that's the real problem right there, in a nutshell. He lets his imagination run wild to fantasies of a quasi-romantic tempest, distracting him from his constant flow of grocery lists, household management, data banks. It's pathetic. Something as small and insignificant and _mundane_ as Gau in the grand scheme of things has no business containing an emotion so oceanic. He makes do the only way he can, given his limited means – by gritting his teeth and pretending it isn't there.

( _I expect the grapes were sour anyway, said the fox._ )

Undeniably real waves slap his heels. As if to provide theme music to Gau's frantic struggle to maintain his ignorance, a few nearby gulls – petulant, shabby grey-white pests - begin to cry.

"You're awfully quiet," Raikou says, appearing at Gau's shoulder out of the blue. His feet are bare as well, his toes long and slender, jointed to elegant ankles. The swim trunks – form-fitting, neon technicolor vomit – are like a joke, completely ruining the effect of Raikou's (magnificent) bare chest, and not for the first time Gau wonders if Raikou might be selectively colorblind. "Something on your mind?"

"Uh, nothing you need to concern yourself with, Raikou-san," Gau sputters, but Raikou – firm shoulders drawn back into a tense line, a hint of latent aggression in the set of his jaw, the narrowness of his eyes – doesn't seem to buy it. He's really unfairly attractive when he's pouting, especially half-naked; Gau has seen that particular face in more than one lust-thickened dream.

"Raimei … said something that gave me pause," Raikou admits, and Gau realizes he was staring and hopes that the look on his face was more 'concerned' than 'strangely aroused'. He coughs in the back of his throat, tries to act suave.

"She's pretty hot-headed sometimes, so don't take her too seriously," he quips, waving a hand dismissively, and Raikou's mouth twitches into a smile; then his eyes flicker downwards to stare at the black swim trunks Gau managed to find in the back of his closet, and Gau remembers that _oh, yeah, I'm half-naked too_.

"She had some things to say about our relationship," Raikou says, finally, crossing his arms, his pink hair fluttering about the harsh lines of his face in a sudden, strong gust of wind. "She told me I'm too controlling and condescending, and that I shouldn't jerk your chain so often, because you're so gullible. It occurred to me that -"

"She said I was _what?_ " Gau fumes. "She's the one who tries to have conversations with _potted plants_ , so I don't see how -"

"Gau," Raikou says, very gently uncrossing his arms and laying his hands on Gau's bare shoulders, fingers cool, palms warm. "Do you think she's right?"

"I'm not gullible," Gau protests, biting his lower lip, and then he realizes that Raikou is technically holding him and that actually, this is kind of related to what he was thinking about before, and he slowly turns a deep, embarrassing shade of tomato-red. "Oh, the other stuff. That's... Raimei doesn't know what she's talking about."

"Really," Raikou says, thoughtfully. "I thought she hit the nail on the head, actually." Stormclouds gather in his stare and Gau's thoughts shift to a litany of curses. "I frequently step outside the bounds of propriety, where you are concerned."

"But I don't – It's not like I mind," Gau stammers, "it's not a problem, really, I'm happy no matter what." How many times will he have to say this, he wonders. "Because – because I just want to stay by your side."

"...Why?" Raikou asks, very quietly, almost to himself, and for a lurching second Gau feels a tremendous sense of vertigo, as though Raikou has, with that one word, pushed them both over the edge, and they are tumbling in freefall. It makes it so easy to open his stupid mouth and waltz right into a danger zone, where everything could vanish in an instant.

"I..." _Don't make me say it, don't make me say it, please, don't make me –_

"You're burning a little," Raikou interrupts, smiling in a way that hurts to watch, not making him say it after all, not pushing. "I'll go get some sunscreen."

Politely, and very, very graciously, he turns to leave.

* * *

… _what?_

_No, wait -_

As Gau flounders in wordless protest, Raikou starts to walk away, and the world narrows into a single dance on the head of a single, slender pin.

* * *

One tenth of the time, Gau is wary – but of what?

Of having that violence, that brutal precision, aimed at him? No, that's not it. Raikou is conscientious; he would never overstrain Gau's capacity to bear his cruelty. Raikou is a gentle giant, if riddled with sadism - knows his own strength.

No, it's not Raikou, in the end, that Gau is most wary of, although there are some portions of him ( _screaming, screaming like a mad thing, bringing Gamon down again, again, again, in a rage that could tear apart continents, rip men to shreds, and the blood is everywhere and stinks like a rotten body in the summer heat but Raikou won't stop screaming, won't stop cutting until white bone, yellow fat, gray brains are all a pulpy mess on the sorrowful parched grass)_ that are, undeniably, very fucking scary.

In the end, it is really the beasts lurking within himself that give him pause.

(How far will he fall, and to what depravities might he sink? And what might he destroy, if he were to set the snowball rolling here at the very top of the mountain?)

But in the end, there is only one concrete, unshakable truth: that Raikou is retreating, and Gau can't bear it anymore, can't bear it at all.

(He is always reaching for something.)

Impetuously resolved, he lifts his hand, and grabs Raikou's left arm. "Wait," he hears himself say.

* * *

"Yes?" Raikou asks, placid as a still lake under the cloudless sky.

And it's stupid, insane, ludicrous for Gau to gamble with what he's got in hopes of something more – because he could live on this, this universe of shopping receipts and late night library trips and the occasional stint as back-up vigilante, forever, he could do it, he could stay right here and never, ever test the glass ceiling (that is, for Raikou, a glass floor), and he could reach for the rest of his life and be content if he never got to _hold_. But -

"D-don't you already know?" Gau stutters. And he doesn't _mean_ to say the next bit, but it leaps out of his throat before he can help it: "It's because I – I'm in, uh, love with you. That's why."

_...Cat's out of the bag, I guess._ And so clumsily, too.

Raikou is stillness itself, as if inside his head he's turning something over, something weighty and terrible. "Gau," he says, very gently, "you're sixteen."

"Yeah, and you're twenty. And how many people do you think I've killed?" Gau snorts – and oh, that was the wrong thing to say, Raikou looks positively _stricken_ , why must he always shove his foot into his mouth with such catastrophic bad timing? "Raikou-san," he says hoarsely, tightening his grip, hand clenched so hard it's shaking, "the point is, you know, I stopped being a kid _years_ before I met you."

"I don't want to hurt you," Raikou says, simply, a glitter of naked want flickering out between the slats of his iron self-control, darkening his eyes. And Gau thinks _yeah, right, you scrap like a dirty street fighter,_ but he thinks he knows what Raikou means. A few bruises and scrapes, here and there, that's one thing, but he doesn't want to _damage_ Gau, and that's something a little more complicated. Shit, this is so embarrassing.

(Because how the hell do you _explain_ that sometimes, in your lowest strangest moments, you think about him losing his control, and it gets you _really_ hot and bothered? How do you explain that a wicked, twisted part of you is downright _gleeful_ to suffer for his sake? And how, without sounding like a melodramatic idiot, can you say that you want to drain all the bitterness out of him, swallow it whole? How do you even _start?_ )

"The only thing you could do that'd really hurt me," Gau says, careful like he's walking a gauntlet or the edge of a knife, "would be to leave me." There. An ultimatum of sorts. He's thrown down his glove, and all that's left to do is wait.

"... All right," Raikou says, and for a heart-stopping moment Gau thinks he's talking about leaving, and is just about ready to bawl or punch him, when he continues: "We – We'll discuss this at dinner."

"Okay," Gau breathes, the words bursting out of him like bubbles, rising jubilantly, like his heart is stuck in his throat. The gulls, inappropriately, continue to cry, but they're not the brightest of creatures, so one can forgive them their poor sense of mood. "O-okay, at dinner, yeah, I was going to make bok choy with peanuts."

"And meat?" His face is flushed, hopeful, radiant, and Gau drinks it in.

"Tofu," Gau murmurs, apologetically, even though Raikou is the one with the compulsive shopping habits.

"It's fine, everything you make turns out edible. Let's go get sunscreen," Raikou says, the pretty slow-lazy crooked grin inching back into his face, grabbing Gau by the hand, "you're turning red." And Gau thinks, with a surge of relief: _It's going to be okay._ _We're definitely going to work something out._

It's only on the long drive back, with a pang of regret, that Gau realizes he never read _The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles._ He resolves to finish it another day, perhaps when it rains.


	2. i didn't mean to f**k you, but you're pretty when you're mine

If they were another couple, a different couple, a _regular_ couple, Gau supposes they probably would have had some sort of preamble. They probably would have sat down across from each other at the dinner table, and stuttered, and nervously tittered, and maybe they would have drawn up a very cutesy list of Things We Want In Our Kinky Relationship, and, come to think of it, they would probably have actually _had_ dinner.

(And it would have been a delicious dinner, too, much to Gau's later chagrin. You win some, you lose some.)

This is how it goes instead:

Raikou puts his warm hand on the small of Gau's back to push him, gently, over the lintel, and then he steps in himself and locks the door. And the _sound_ that the key makes as it turns in the lock is so heavy, and it seems to ripple through the air, brushing almost imperceptibly through Gau's skin to grasp his heart – _click._

"Hey," Raikou says, looking him in the eyes with unbearable _gravitas_ , "you seem nervous."

_No, really?_

"I thought maybe you didn't get what I was trying to say earlier," Gau admits, his palms sweating, biting the inside of his cheeks, unwilling or unable to tear his gaze away from Raikou's face. Why bother, when he knows this anteroom - shoes, coats on pegs, slightly scuffed tatami down the hall, muted green paint, a chipped tiled step, sunlight blundering through a tiny high window - so well he could shut his eyes and still see it? No, there's nothing here worth looking at but-

"Oh?" An inclined head, the tilt of a sharp chin, the shifting fall of coquettish pink hair, and Raikou seems almost smug, almost perfectly composed, apart from the whisper of hunger in his eyes. If the unnamed violence had a form, Gau would imagine it snaking out of Raikou's gaze and circling Gau like a shark. "Feel free to tell me _exactly_ what you meant."

(He's been waiting for _years_ for this, years of jerking off in the early hours of the morning and gritting his teeth and _not thinking about it._ Gau hardly knows what he wants anymore, just knows that he _wants._ )

 _And how shall I presume?_ He decides to go for the "blunt as a hammer" route.

"Well, for starters, I think maybe - maybe you're a sadist. Actually, I'm pretty sure you are. Like, ninety-five percent sure," Gau says, and Raikou doesn't say anything to affirm or deny that, no ' _Brilliant deduction, Watson'._ His lips pinch into a thin pale line. _How do I explain, about the violence?_ "And... and I wanted to say, I think I'm a masochist. Probably."

"So... so you actually... _enjoy_ pain?" Raikou asks - he does not appear surprised, he is trying to understand. His voice is unbearably thick, but he still manages to seem scholarly and inquisitive; with exaggerated slowness, he clasps his long fingers about Gau's wrist. The contact of skin to skin is jarring, a delightful transgression. He is fascinated. "You want to suffer?"

"Sure. As long as it's for you," Gau murmurs, breath hitching, eyelids dropping to half-mast. (He has the rushing, singing feeling that everything he says will come out perfectly - he gets flustered but he doesn't fumble during moments of high drama. With this same composure he threw himself into the path of Shirogamon.) _Touch me touch me touch me more._ "And - and I don't really enjoy pain, not in general, just... you know, pain with _intent_."

A curious light enters Raikou's eyes as he digests that nugget of information, and they stand there in the genkan in hushed silence for a few long, languid seconds, quiet enough to hear their teeth click.

Then Raikou shifts his grip on Gau's wrist, tugs his hand up between them, pulls it in close. Gau's hand seems small, somehow, helpless like a pinioned bird in Raikou's. Slowly, his fingers relax, and Raikou runs his thumb up the inside of Gau's palm to press against his pinkie, insistent - splaying it back as far as it will go.

(Gau can only hear his own heartbeat now, hear their strained attempts to breathe. He smells dinner cooking across the street - curry. He smells ... Raikou.)

Raikou pulls Gau's hand in close, like he's going to kiss it -

And then he _bites_ the tender web of flesh between his pinkie and his ring finger, and Gau feels the ground fall out from under his stomach.

(It is one of the peculiar inconveniences - humiliations, even - of youth, that that's all it takes for him to pop a boner. So long, dignity, and don't let the door hit you on the way out.)

* * *

The reason Gau is such an adept researcher is that he has always been a data fiend: he collects odd tidbits of information like a magpie, and, by extension, he is fond of stories. There is one English folk tradition that has always resonated deeply with him, and has haunted him since he first discovered it: the curious 'sin eater'.

In practice the ritual is very mercenary: the sins of the recently deceased are ceremonially transferred into a meal. This is usually achieved (at the very least) with some bread crusts, passed over or pressed against the corpse. Then the designated epicure eats the food, thereby literally ingesting the transgression, and the dead are conveniently sent to heaven relieved of all the burdens of bad karma. The sin eater, usually an untouchable beggar, may receive some monetary compensation for this act of self-damnation, but if not - well, he's been fed. The whole business is, Gau thinks, almost humorously cut-and-dry.

But within the murky silt of the subconscious all things are refracted; they become alien and familiar, acquire the queer luster of mythology. The sin eater is a pariah archetype, a darker, more miserable species of bodhisattva, a horrid mash-up of martyr and glutton. It is at once sublime and totally perverse; and sex, after all, is so intimately connected with death...

 _Feed me your pain, your madness_ , Gau thinks sometimes, when he forgets that he's not a Gothic-novel heroine, staring with abject longing at Raikou's back. _Give it to me. I'll swallow it all without complaint._

(In a totally mundane way, of course, Gau connects with sin eaters because they are so un-glamorous. Theirs is not the Tarazuka showmanship of saints, but the humble charm of the girl-next-door, and Gau - funny-looking stray dog - thinks it's important to have realistic role models.)

* * *

"... You liked that," Raikou says, with this godawfully hot smirk on his face, and Gau wants to yank his hand away but Raikou's finger strength (born from kendo, from paper-making, from heart-snatching) is ludicrous; he shifts his grip, presses a single, chaste kiss to Gau's palm - _oh god oh god he kissed me he put his lips on me_ \- and then _bites_ him again, this time the wider strip of skin between his index finger and his thumb. It's a jolt of pain-pleasure that leaves his flesh tingling, hyper-sensitive - and it's so absurdly _intimate_ it makes Gau shudder.

The touch of Raikou's tongue against his abused flesh has him moaning. (And the way he forces Gau's fingers apart holds a heady sadistic promise: _I'll do this to your legs, later.)_

"You'll tell me, Gau," Raikou says, a weird light in his eyes, "if you don't like anything, and we'll stop." A pause, a hiss, the heavy fabric of Raikou's hakama brushing against Gau's skinny jeans, aftershocks of feeling through the denim, the tip of Raikou's tongue running over his straight teeth. "Won't you?"

"Huh? Yeah, I will," Gau promises, unconsciously wetting his lips in mimicry, and oh, damn, you'd have to be blind to miss the erection straining against the crotch of his pants. He feels like he might faint - images running so quickly through his brain they dizzy him. "Um... A-are we going to, you know... do it?"

Raikou blinks - _how does he make that elegant?_ \- his pale eyelashes laying butterfly kisses on his sharp cheekbones - and then, with blatant disregard for the high drama of the moment, he bursts out in noiseless laughter, his shoulders quaking with mirth.

Gau wants to protest that, somehow - the insult stings red across his face, coils around his shame and strokes it - but Raikou pins him against the wall, his pink hair falling around both their faces - _so close, so close_ \- and cradles Gau's skull tenderly, with hands that smell, oddly enough, like lavender soap, and Gau decides he doesn't mind because Raikou is fucking gorgeous when he laughs.

(The flushed pinkness of Raikou's lips, the rippling honeyed hazel of his familiar-unfamiliar eyes. Promises, delicious promises.)

"If you wish to, ah, ' _do it'_ , then we shall," Raikou vows, still half-laughing, and Gau's heart leaps into his throat. _We're seriously going to - ?_ "But at least let me kiss you, first," Raikou says, mock-petulant, skin flushed with good humor. "It seems only proper, doesn't it?"

And Gau burns to assent - _yes please please yes_ \- however tremulous, however high-pitched, but at that point Raikou is already leaning in, and (miraculously!) Gau finds himself at a complete loss for words. It's just as well: when he's overexcited Gau's voice tends to get squeaky.

* * *

Raikou's lips are soft, his mouth is warm; it tastes, Gau discovers, like nothing in particular, except maybe heat, the overwhelming _burning_ that coils through his soul at the sucker-punch realization: _You're kissing me, you're touching me with your hands, you're kissing me, you're looking at me, oh, finally.._.

He is hedged in, pressed up against the plaster wall by the long, hard length of Raikou's body. A knee between his shaking knees, a thigh between his thighs - his hands are clenched into trembling fists by his sides, until Raikou retreats just a shade and says, so amused: "You're allowed to touch me, you know," and Gau just sort of _sobs_ and his hands are all of a sudden fisted into the material of Raikou's shirtfront, trying to pull him closer, close enough that they melt into each other.

(Raikou nearly loses his balance - slams a hand into the wall by Gau's head to check himself.)

"Please," Gau says, swimming vision fixed stubbornly on Raikou's chest, eyes hot with definitely-not-tears-boys-don't-cry, because it's all he can think to say, mouth running on autopilot. He doesn't know the sound of his own voice - something broken and pleading, emasculated, altogether too needy; altogether too whiny and pathetic. "I need you to - I need - p-please, um, Raikou-san, if you're just doing this to indulge me - I can't -"

Can't let you, he wants to say, although everything in his being screams in protest; he wants everything, oh, he wants to glut himself, but he couldn't _bear_ charity.

"You think this is -" Raikou says, and cuts himself off. "...Are you crying?"

"No," Gau insists, through tears. "No way."

Raikou scoffs a little at that, puts a hand beneath Gau's chin and forces him to look up, into better lighting. "If it's reassurance you want," he says, gaze tracking the slide of a tear down Gau's flushed cheek, "then rest assured that I'm not in the habit of having pity sex. I'm not doing this simply to indulge you."

"Really?" Gau mumbles - pushing his luck, he thinks, but he can't help it, can't keep his mouth shut to save his life.

Raikou smiles. "Of course," he whispers, parting Gau's messy bangs to press a possessive kiss to his forehead. "And you mustn't try to conceal your weeping from me," he chides, the violence glimmering in his eyes. "You are so _lovely_ when you cry."

(Compliments like 'lovely' invade Gau's brain and destroy his ability to think straight - it's a lie, he is anything but lovely, and on reflex he rejects it. Raikou's voice, though, is very convinced, so Gau can't help but blush.)

Casually, and with evident glee, Raikou leans forward, and begins to lick the tears from Gau's face.

Gau's entire body shudders with confused arousal, his skin hypersensitive to every touch, every wet brush of Raikou's pink tongue on his skin, every small puff of breath. He can't fight the shivering. He clings to Raikou's forearms, hips squirming helplessly against the slim leg between his - Raikou and long-suffering wall are the only things keeping him upright.

"... Mmm," Raikou mutters, and it feels like Gau's entire body is throbbing - a tiny quiet cry escapes his reddening lips, but does not escape Raikou's notice, and even though Gau can't really see straight right now, he can hear the warmth oozing into Raikou's voice: "I see you liked that, as well."

Gau half-laughs at that - it'd be funny, really, it would be a prime opportunity for badinage, if he weren't inches away from going off in his jeans. "I think maybe you should kiss me again," he says, words blurting out of him in a messy tangle.

"Should I?" Raikou whispers, breathy and delighted, teasing; he kisses the tip of Gau's freckle-spattered nose. Spilling through the window, the sunset turns Raikou's hair into a filamented electric-pink smear. "But I could never kiss you enough."

Gau grins up at him, and says, " _Quareis, quot mihi bastiones tuae,_ Raikou-san, _sint satis superque. Quam magnus numerus -_ "

("You ask me how many of your kisses, Raikou, would satiate? As great a number as -")

Sadly, Raikou is not as big a fan of Catullus as Gau is, but over the years he's grown used to Gau's incomprehensible Western literary references, and by now he has probably picked up enough Latin through sheer osmosis to get the gist of it, because he rolls his eyes and kisses him. Score one for the nerds.

* * *

Raikou kisses his chin, kisses his eyelids, kisses his frantic mouth, and Gau curls close to him like ivy clinging to an iron gate - a delicate, greedy plant, adhering to a firm thing it can entwine without fear of strangulation. He's not really sure what his hips are doing - they seem to have a mind of their own with very, uh, _insistent_ ideas - but it feels good, it sends spikes of agonized pleasure up his spine.

He hisses - a long exhale of breath - when Raikou slides his fingers down, past the small of his back to the vicinity of his jeans' back pockets, and experimentally _kneads_.

"Oh, god," he stammers, squirming - and since he's basically riding Raikou's thigh, that probably wasn't the best idea. "Hnn-" He had no idea his ass was an erogenous zone. Interesting.

Raikou laughs at him again, lightly, under his breath, and squeezes again, tugging Gau closer, until their hipbones are nearly dovetailed, and for the first time - Gau thinks maybe his heart has stopped - he can feel Raikou's length. Something sick and shameful inside of him is _delighted_ by it; he is completely distracted from his own erection, rocks his hips forward to stay in contact.

Then, as usual, something _occurs_ to him, and he opens his mouth.

"... Er. Wow. That's, um, not Shirogamon," he says, glancing at the sword still slung over Raikou's shoulder.

Raikou stares at him incredulously.

"... No," he says, as if he is questioning Gau's sanity. "No, that would be my _dick_. ... Are you stalling? Do you want me to stop? We can -"

"No!" Gau says, tightening his grip on Raikou's shirt in desperation. "I have no reservations about this _whatsoever_ , just - um - what, exactly, did you want to do?"

Raikou gets an odd expression on his face - a 'how in the world did I end up here' look, mingled with 'fuck my life', all bundled up with a side serving of 'you can't be serious'. "... When two men wish to enter into a sexual relationship -"

" _That's not what I meant I know how gay sex works I've seen pictures,_ " Gau hisses, all in one breath, flushing a truly remarkable shade of deep crimson. "I meant - look, I doubt vanilla sex would be that appealing to you or otherwise you'd probably already be seeing someone, and frankly it's not that interesting to me either so I wanted to know what, exactly, you were planning on doing, because I don't think our, uh, first time together, should have any miscommunications, I mean - oh, shit, this is totally a mood-killer, isn't it, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to -"

"Calm down, please, Gau," Raikou says, smiling at him, and squeezes so hard that Gau has to bite back a yelp.

 _'Calm down'._ It's easier said than done, but Gau makes a valiant effort to obey; he shuts his eyes, stops babbling, takes a few deep breaths, tries to keep his hips from twitching, counts to twenty, contemplates the laundry he hasn't done, and then opens his eyes to find Raikou staring at him.

"Good boy," Raikou says, softly, running a finger down Gau's face.

(Something in the core of Gau's being _lurches_ at that tiny scrap of praise.)

"You want to know," Raikou continues, "what I wish to do with you?"

"... A general idea would be nice, Raikou-san," Gau demurs, apologetically.

Raikou grows as still as a marble statue, brings his hands to rest on Gau's hips; the violence flickers behind his eyes, darkening them, and all traces of humor vanish from his expression. This is the hard, pitiless core of him: the blade unsheathed.

* * *

"The contents of my fantasies are not, as you put it, vanilla. At times I doubt that they're sane or healthy - but you said you wished to know, and I don't wish to have to explain myself after the fact, so:

"I want to bend you over, tie you down, and fuck you until you can't walk," he says, the obscenity tumbling out of his angelic lips as if he were simply discussing the weather. _My, isn't it chilly today, better wear your jacket._ "I want to watch you sob for me, hear you beg me for mercy - see you powerless. I wish to mark you, somehow - beat you, whip you, humiliate you, anything that would leave visible traces of myself on your skin.

"I want to ruin you for other people," he admits, running his fingers through Gau's hair with a tenderness that is completely at odds with what he's saying, "and keep you for myself. Break you and put you back together again. Bite you and scratch you and hurt you - I fantasize that you would allow me to do these things... I don't know how to treat those I love with any sort of delicacy, but I know perfectly well," he says, his eyes haunted, "how to destroy them."

* * *

A private corner of Gau's heart wants to weep for him.

They are both so complicated, so twisted, that the reciprocality of their desires borders on the unbelievable. He hates that Raikou has been hurt, but at the same time, he is shamelessly grateful.

* * *

"... O-okay," Gau says, a bit unsteadily, because he is hard and also fighting the urge to sniffle over Raikou's tragic past, which makes for a seriously weird combination. _'Self-preservation'? What's that?_ he thinks, almost amused.

" 'Okay'?" Raikou breathes, his expression unguarded, as vulnerable and raw as an open wound. "You mean that?"

"Absolutely," Gau promises him, darting forwards and pressing a quick kiss to the edge of his lower lip. His mood is frothy like champagne bubbles, lackadaisical and crisp. "I'm in love with you, you know? That means all of you, even - even the parts you don't like."

 _"This_ is what you want?" Raikou presses, meaning himself, and Gau nods, solemn. _However many times I have to say it: yes._

Apropos of nothing, Raikou buries his face in Gau's shoulder, hugging him fiercely. "... thank you, Gau," he murmurs, almost too quietly to be heard. Before Gau can snort and ask _for what, being selfish?_ he's resumed his physical assault on Gau's senses, placing gentle kisses on his neck, sliding his callused hands beneath Gau's thin shirt, and Gau lets him.

However wise to Raikou's nature he may be, and however smart he thinks he is, Gau would let Raikou do anything.

* * *

"Now, where were we?" Raikou murmurs against Gau's electrified skin, as if lost in thought.

"Uh, I think you were - groping my ass," Gau says, in a failed attempt to sound suave. (His neglected dick chooses that particular moment to twitch, as if in indignation at being ignored.)

"Ah, yes," Raikou says, relaxing by degrees and seconds. "So I was." His hands latch on to the aforementioned body part and jerk Gau into his arms, and Gau recalls belatedly _just how strong_ Raikou is, because holy shit, his feet are no longer touching the ground. "Shall we move this somewhere a little more... intimate than the foyer?" Raikou suggests, already walking - _carrying_ him, which is arousing in ways Gau can't really articulate.

(For example: the fact that he has to cling to Raikou's shoulders, forced to wrap his legs around Raikou's hips just to stay balanced; the implicit understanding that Raikou could probably snap him in half but _doesn't_ , his strength a tamed monster on a short leash; his selfish impatience mingled with the sweetness of ' _shall we?'_ , how unbearably kind -)

"Anywhere," Gau moans, stupidly dazed by the press of their bodies against one another. "Please, anywhere -"

Raikou nudges his face with his nose, wordlessly coaxing him to look up: he kisses Gau once on his damp brow, murmurs "- bedroom -", and then presses their mouths together, hungrily swallowing all of Gau's pleas.

* * *

Gau has his arms around Raikou's shoulders, daring to tangle his fingers in the fall of silken pink hair (it looks like bubblegum but smells like floral shampoo). His eyes are shut against the fierce onslaught of Raikou's fervent kisses. Lips, eyelids, cheeks, chin, the nip of his nose, the line of his jaw where it tickles - it's overwhelming, it leaves him dizzy, and the hard pressure of Raikou's hands on Gau's skin is just so - so - !

After a few moments and some blurred movement - Gau can't really process anything at this point, he wouldn't notice a fire alarm - Raikou lays him down on a bed, while pressing one long, lingering kiss to his lips, and Gau blinks, hands instinctively flung out to cushion his descent.

 _Raikou's room? ... when did we get here, again?_ His now-painfully-hard erection throbs in his jeans as he fidgets, and he props himself up on his elbows in confusion - Raikou has stopped touching him, has in fact stepped back a pace. _What's the matter,_ he wants to ask, but the words die in his throat.

The look on Raikou's face is so intense Gau can barely breathe.

Raikou's eyes, as he stares, are like glittering chunks of amber: the fading sunset leaks in through the window and swims within them, adding a touch of the supernatural to his inhuman beauty.

"Wh-what are you thinking?" Gau asks, licking his bee-stung lips, trying to recover the breath that has deserted him.

"... That I almost killed you once," Raikou says, carefully divesting himself of Shirogamon and holding it, sheathed, in his hands. His knuckles are very white, but his wrists do not tremble; his voice is calm in a way that feels wrong.

Gau doesn't really know what to say to that.

Raikou's eyes narrow, slightly; he offers Gau a wan smile. "... And even so, here you are, offering yourself up once again. Your faith in me beggars belief."

"Oh," Gau says, simply, and blushes deeply. "I, uh, thank you?" _Was that a compliment? I think it was..._

Raikou's smile widens into its usual, charmingly crooked half-grin, and he closes the distance between them, placing a hand on Gau's chest and pushing him onto his back. His head is slightly propped up by the pillows - he stares, wide-eyed, at Raikou and the ceiling.

"Hold still," Raikou says, casually, setting Shirogamon down on the bed beside them, and Gau can only nod, obedient to a fault. Because ultimately his trust in Raikou, regardless of whether it is deserved, is absolute.

* * *

The air in the room is warm; Raikou's breath on his skin is warm; it feels like his heart might hammer out of his chest, he struggles to keep his breath steady but it keeps escaping in harsh, animal panting; he wants to describe the feelings buzzing through his flesh, the drunken sweetness of - everything - but he can't string more than a few words together, can't focus on anything but the way it _feels_. He thinks he's never felt so many things at once in his entire life.

Raikou lifts up Gau's shirt just enough to press a kiss to his bellybutton. "You're so responsive, Gau," he murmurs, "do I really excite you so?"

Gau's fingers dig into he bedsheets and his toes curl as he tries not to squirm, shriek, or buck his hips, or something equally humiliating. "H-huh?"

"I see."

_H-hey, don't laugh at me -_

He deftly unzips Gau's jeans and pulls them off in one fluid, brutally swift movement, causing Gau to yelp and stammer incoherently in belated embarrassment - because _oh god, the boxers seriously don't hide much -_ but Raikou shushes him with a thumb against his lips. He presses little bites against Gau's thighs, the crests of his hips under taut pale skin - soothes the sting with his tongue before biting again, again, again, until Gau's skin screams at the lightest brush.

"Uh _\- Raikou-sa - nnn-"_ Gau gives up trying to speak at all, and keens wordlessly, trying very hard to _hold still_ and not writhe beneath the stimulation. Raikou laughs, softly, under his breath, and presses another long, slow kiss to Gau's mouth before shifting back down to his lower half. The difference in their sizes is really something - Raikou can manipulate Gau's body like a ragdoll - oh _god_ he'd better not think about the things Raikou could make him do, because that's a really short route to premature ejaculation. He shudders.

"You should keep making noises," Raikou says, nuzzling the dip where his hipbone meets his stomach - he must be kneeling over Gau's legs. He sounds almost smug. "They're quite... cute."

He flicks his tongue - _hotwetohmygod -_ into Gau's bellybutton, and Gau allows a tiny, pathetic moan to escape as his dick twitches - he sounds _ridiculously_ lewd, he's pretty sure he's redder than a ripe tomato by now. As if to reward him for his compliance, Raikou snakes his fingertips underneath the elastic waistband of Gau's boxer briefs, and gently lifts before tugging them down, over his knees and bony ankles and off completely.

Gau's breath catches in his throat; he thinks his heart might explode. His hands, still clenched painfully hard into the blanket, tremble; he wants to hide behind them but Raikou said _stay still_ -

"Gau... Open your eyes."

It almost hurts to open them, they're so tightly shut, but somehow Gau manages, and he discovers that the fading sunlight has mellowed to a ripe wine-red and the shadows are velvet indigo - and his erection is straining up towards the ceiling and Raikou is _smiling_ at it, and at him, and somehow the smile is amused and reverent at the same time. It makes a lump rise in Gau's throat, to be looked at with such an expression, and suddenly he wants to cry, because how the hell is he so lucky, to cheat death (twice) and get _this_?

"Shhh," Raikou says, and presses a soft kiss to his forehead, again - it's soothing, meant to reassure, but Gau still trembles. "Sit up a little, I'm going to take off your shirt."

"O-okay," Gau says, his voice an awkward, high-pitched croak, and pushes himself into a sitting position on shaking arms. The air is warm on his skin. It's a fairly drab t-shirt; he wonders if he should -

Raikou hefts Shirogamon up, and unsheathes it in one fluid movement.

* * *

Gau very nearly swoons - he doesn't, but his jaw drops, and he's dizzied by the sudden rush of blood away from his brain. The blade gleams, wickedly sharp. _'I'm going to take off your shirt.'_ "R-Raikou-san?"

Raikou doesn't answer; he lays the flat of the blade flat against Gau's stomach (littered with small hickeys, bites) and slides the cold metal up under the flimsy cloth, caressing his chest with it. He halts the point of the blade an inch shy of Gau's chin.

Gau feels feverish; his hands shake like autumn leaves in the wind. There's a distant sense of _wet -_ which means he's probably leaking precome all over his stomach and thighs - but he's hypnotized, can't spare his own body any attention.

It has been said that truly master-class katana, crafted during the thousand-years war, when the fields of Japan ran crimson with blood and owning a better sword was the difference between life and death - it's said that they were so deadly sharp, you could drop a square of gossamer silk over the blade and it would be sliced in two as it fell.

Shirogamon makes those legendary katana seem as effectual as plastic butter knives.

Raikou only has to flick his wrist: a bird's wing, slicing through smoke.

* * *

"... oh," Gau gasps, softly, as his entire body convulses. His ruined shirt sags from his shoulders. All he can see is the gleam of the blade, the gleam in Raikou's eyes.

To his later (immense) embarrassment, he faints.

* * *

When he comes to, Raikou is busily divesting himself of his shirt and staring at Gau's limp body with something that looks very much like pride. "Oh, you're awake again," he tells Gau, somewhat unnecessarily. Raikou's bare arms and torso are that of a world-class male model, roped with lean muscle that is buttery-soft in its relaxation; his nipples are on the darker side of pink, and they are blatantly hard.

Gau's mouth stammers independently of his brain as his eyes feast themselves. He can't seem to produce any coherent sentences. "I - you - um - shirt." His sliced shirt has been dropped untidily on the floor, and Shirogamon lies sheathed on the weapons rack.

... He didn't come, he realizes, and it is like remembering the existence of a dreadful itch; he has to fight the urge to touch himself, relieve the pressure, has to fight to stay still. He's anxious to please, hyperaware of his inexperience, terrified that he might do something wrong. "S-sorry," he says, on the verge of bursting into tears again. (Good thing he decided not to have any dignity, oh, not more than an hour ago.) "I'm really sorry -"

"Whatever for?" Raikou asks him, untying the second sash of his hakama and letting it fall unceremoniously to the floor. Gau's eyes widen as round as bowls.

"P-passing out is really kinda lame and - oh my god you have a really _huge_ dick," he says, because he's an idiot like that, and immediately resumes his earlier state of constant blushing. It's almost impossible to look away from... it. He can't help imagining what that'd feel like, shoved down his throat, or hammering into him, or - he shudders. _Damn._ It feels like his whole face is on fire.

Raikou grins at him. His eyes are almost completely black; his pupils are extremely dilated. "I thought it was funny that you swooned," he says, cheerfully, and Gau kind of wants to find a rock to crawl under. "But... it did flatter my ego."

He _looms_ over the bed, the crooked smile twisting his words. "You want me so _badly_ ," Raikou whispers, as though he finds the power he wields over Gau intoxicating. "So badly you fainted. Everything I do to you, even the lightest of touches, makes you squirm."

"I'm sorry," Gau breathes. His hips jerk. Raikou's voice is like drowning in molasses, or maybe ginger syrup...

(The angle at which Gau lies is not really ideal for staring at Raikou's naked body, but he makes an effort. He wants to burn this into his memory.)

"For what?" Raikou asks him again, caressing his flushed face with cool fingertips, kneeling over Gau's body. The arch of his shoulders and spine, the cant of his hips, are like the sweep of a master's paintbrush. He is _completely_ unfair.

"You - you said to stay still," Gau says in a small voice. "I don't think I can."

* * *

"... Obedient little thing, aren't you," Raikou says, quietly, and presses a kiss to Gau's collarbone. He faces Gau with a solemn joy that sets Gau's heart skipping at a mile a minute. "You cook food for me," kiss, "you clean our home for me," kiss, "you do so many little things, all alone, and you do them for me, and you think I don't notice..."

"Raikou-san?"

"I notice," Raikou tells him, pressing yet more kisses to his neck, his jaw, his face, the lobe of his ear. Gau can't seem to keep his eyes from watering; he blinks the tears away but they keep welling up. "You think I don't. But I do."

"Raikou-san..."

"Hold your wrists together above your head," Raikou says, and Gau obeys - doesn't even need to think about it, it comes naturally.

(And being given the opportunity to obey, to bend to Raikou's whims and give him something he wants, simply being given an order to follow - it soothes the anxiety knotting tension in his shoulders, comforts him as well as the reassuring kisses do, distracts him from thinking _any minute now you are going to lose your virginity, how about that_.)

Raikou looses the yellow ribbon from his hair and knots it expertly around Gau's thin wrists, tying it in such a way that the knot lies outside the range of motion of Gau's tentative fingers. This isn't so much relaxing as it is like being drugged. Now Gau doesn't have to worry about staying still; now the gentle tug of the ribbon reminds his hands for him. He sinks down against the pillows, deflating with a noiseless sigh as the contentment surprises him.

"Better?" Raikou asks, pressing a quick kiss to the end of Gau's nose.

Yes, it's much better, Gau wants to say, but he finds he can only nod, bashfully ducking his head, hiding behind his lowered eyelids and messy bangs. He is slightly in awe at the depth of his feelings. He feels like he is balancing on a cloud and carrying a weightless world in his hands at the same time; but his body and his blood-heavy dick weigh him down, until he sticks to the moment like skin on skin.

"Raikou-san," he murmurs, as he exhales. Even saying his name is pleasurable. He looks up, shyly meeting Raikou's eyes again, and the sight of him is another warm, tingling wave of pleasure, lapping gently all over his skin.

* * *

Raikou pushes his knees up, slides a spare blanket under Gau's lower back, kisses his kneecaps, and presses a fond parting bite to the smallest toe of Gau's left foot; Gau squirms. "Ahh -" he gasps.

"You're nicely bent, and I've tied you up," Raikou says in a pleasant voice that is almost sing-song in cadence. He smiles, wide like a crocodile, and runs his hands over Gau's milky white thighs, thumbs caressing the soft skin in the crooks of his knees. "And what am I going to do next, Gau?"

' _I want to bend you over, tie you down, and fuck you until you can't walk.'_

Gau's sense of impassioned tranquility is abruptly set aflame by a ravenous, all-consuming need. The immense weight of it drags him under like a riptide. He's been fighting this off for years and now - now it's almost crushing him. He didn't realize he was capable of needing anything so much. Suddenly he doesn't think he can last more than five minutes without exploding, or dying - suddenly he can't stand it. "Y-you said you would..." he stutters, his mouth dry, his spine trembling. His bound hands clench into terrified fists. "Um."

" 'Um'?" Raikou asks, softly, and leans forward - _god, he's so tall_ \- to press a kiss to Gau's feverish face. "Tell me, Gau," he coaxes.

Gau teeters for a long moment on the precipice between his shame and his need.

Need wins.

"You said you would f - fuck me. Until I can't - can't - can't _walk_ ," he sobs, almost hiccuping on the words. A few inexplicable tears escape his eyes; tenderly, Raikou catches them with kisses. " _R-raikou-san._ "

"Good boy," Raikou murmurs, and his voice is low, thicker than dark chocolate. He runs his slender fingers through Gau's hair, gently massaging his scalp. "Do you want me to, Gau?"

"I _need_ you to do it" Gau whimpers, thoroughly lost in the heat. " _Please._ " If he were at all capable of controlling himself, right now, he'd probably be gritting his teeth, but instead his mouth hangs open, lewd and inviting as he pants for air. Everything burns. He doesn't know how much longer he can possibly survive: being so very, very close to Raikou but _not close enough._ "Please..."

He can hear Raikou's breath catch, see his eyes go pitch-black like a shark scenting blood, and before he can really process it Raikou is ripping a lid from a small tube and coating his fingers with the contents and -

Hot slick fingers, long and familiar, slide along the cleft between his legs, below his aching erection, and -

* * *

It's not as sordid as he thought it would be. The outrageous blows to the ego one tends to accrue throughout one's life when one possesses testicles and a penis have given Gau a very dim view of his own anatomy: frankly, he's always thought that sex, particularly anal sex, was probably ridiculous at best and mortifying at worst. How could you stand it, he wondered - the sheer indignity of the flesh? - and he returned to his research.

It was only after his Raikou-specific sexuality had blossomed that Gau had grudgingly reconsidered his stance on the whole thing.

He has given in, little by little, to the lust behind the curtain in his brain, and now the curtain has been drawn, and he finds himself wretchedly unprepared to act on it. He wants to be _close_ to Raikou, as close as two people can possibly be, and that includes sex.

It is surprising, he thinks, and humbling: the way his feelings for Raikou nearly completely overwhelm the banality of his actual body.

* * *

The words ' _inside me inside me inside me'_ thunder through Gau's brain, cracking his self-control like a smashed jar of dripping honey - the lust, the need, the _want_ all ooze out and puddle everywhere. Every single part of him is unbearably _alive_ , he smells the soft clinical scent of the lubrication and Raikou's sweat - the smell of _sex_ , musky pine arousal. Every tiny invisible hair on the expanse of Gau's skin is raised, the lamplight is soft like whispers, Raikou is _inside of him_.

One finger, up to the second knuckle. Gau is not sure he can actually handle it, but he is insatiably greedy for more, because this is -

This is overwhelming, but it isn't nearly enough. All parts of him are desperately hungry.

"... ohhhh," he sighs, a red film swallowing his vision as Raikou moves in the tiniest of circles within him, stretching and teasing at shy muscles. His touch is - how to put it? - it is as if happiness were a liquid, and Raikou were determined to paint him with it. "Don't stop, I'll _starve._ "

"Idiot," Raikou says, affectionately. His first finger is suddenly joined by another, forcing its way in, and Raikou _scissors them_ \- Gau _screams_ , a million of his muscles convulsing at once. He can't stop shaking; the aftershocks are brutal.

"Uh- _uuungh_ -"

"You are so pretty," Raikou whispers, repeating the action in slow motion. He breathes against the wicked scar that arches from Gau's left shoulder to his right hipbone: a thin wale of raised tissue that Raikou himself is responsible for. (Close brushes with accidental manslaughter are really very romantic.) "So perfect."

_You really think I'm -?_

"P-please - I'm gonna -"

"No, you aren't," Raikou says, pressing more kisses, damp, to Gau's hammering chest. "Not until I say you can."

"Please, please, please -" Gau sobs, his knees clinging to the warm solidity of Raikou's body, toes curling.

"Just a little longer," Raikou promises. " - shhh, it's all right," he coaxes, thrusting his fingers deeper and licking the tears that well up in Gau's traitorous eyes. "It's all right, just - just a little longer -"

* * *

Gau doesn't ask for things from Raikou unless he needs them - ingredients for their dinners, the address of the dentist, directions to a place only Raikou knows about. He doesn't want to be a bother - and he has his pride, too. He cannot recall ever making a selfish request of Raikou before today.

He needs this so badly.

* * *

"Please fuck me," Gau breathes, under the assault of increasing squirming fingers and kisses on every inch of his skin and the swelling sense that he is burning. "Please, please, please fuck me, please?"

Raikou's laugh is strangled, strained. A streetlight is lit outside the window, behind the blinds; Raikou's room is a lovely island floating gently through the twilight, Gau is so happy to be in it.

"Gau - If you keep begging like that -"

_I like this, I like it so much -_

Gau wraps his legs around Raikou and grinds down against the fingers spreading him. He groans at the jolt of pleasure, the throbbing echo in his dick (very painfully hard, and he is thankful that Raikou is not putting any pressure on it; the simple brush of the head against Raikou's stomach is almost unbearable). "Uhhhnn - _p-pretty_ please?"

Raikou actually _moans_.

(Holy shit, _he can make Raikou moan_? File _that_ away under "hugely important, do not forget, ever.")

" - nnngh - I _will_ , I will," Raikou scolds him, biting his nipples in (ineffective) punishment and panting for breath, "don't rush me -"

* * *

_Now now now more more more faster faster faster, your tongue on me your lips against me your teeth your fingers your heat. I want, I want, I want, until all that remains is the wanting. My brain dissolves, my heart bursts._

_(Love me. Please, love me.)_

* * *

"- or I'll damage you," Raikou says. "...Unintentionally," he adds after a beat, a low laugh hitching his voice.

"S-sounds good to me," Gau says, managing to be almost coherent. His flesh shudders, clenches. He's slurring his speech, is so lost in the moment he can't remember which way is up. It hurts - the stretch, his legs splayed open - and it feels way too good, the burn, everything's burning, rioting in his bones, stabbing through him. "A- ah- want it."

"Shush," Raikou says. Through the tumultuous haze of sensations, Gau gets the impression of overwhelming fondness in Raikou's voice. He imagines his scar is tingling - his whole body is tingling, he actually can't pick any one thing out except for the region around his hips.

It feels like they've been doing this for hours - Gau is so impatient, so absolutely ready to get to the fucking point - _ha ha, the fucking-point -_ why in heaven's name is he thinking of _puns_ right now - he moans, in frustration -

"All right, good enough," Raikou murmurs under his breath, and slides his fingers out. Slightly gummed with the the lube, they stick a little to Gau's skin when Raikou pushes his knees up to his chest.

Time seems to shudder to a halt. The sheets cling to Gau's back.

\- _he's going to -_

"I'll go slowly," says Raikou, almost like he is speaking to himself, and -

(not very slowly, hey, begging works)

\- begins to slide in.

* * *

The katana is the soul of the samurai. In a dark and crooked way, Gau has always been jealous of the people Raikou kills with Shirogamon - jealous of their wounds.

It just seems so intimate, having a soul shoved into your heart.

* * *

_Breathe in; exhale._

"...Gau?"

The rings of muscle inside of him shudder; Gau hears Raikou hiss. Everything seems like a camera out of focus - he is so _stretched_ , it's like being impaled. Even with all the preparation, he thinks he still might tear a little - he doesn't mind it, though. He inhales, breathes out, tries to relax.

After a few long seconds that drift by in protracted gaps of concentration, he realizes his body has adjusted to the new shape.

 _...Where are my limbs?_ He wiggles his toes, flexes his fingers - yes, it's all still there. He believes that if he could only think of the right muscle, he could command Raikou's fingers and toes, too... A moment later he recants the notion: Raikou is obviously the brain of this double body.

His mind is floating somewhere soft and warm. In place of blood, his heart pumps music - Vivaldi's _Spring_ concerto, or maybe something by Haydn. There are lips pressed against his Adam's apple - Raikou. Raikou is kissing him, soft summer rain.

"Gau, look at me."

Gau looks. In the semi-dark Raikou swims into almost-focus. He is blurring around the edges - he won't disappear, Gau reassures himself: he's just melting.

"Come back down, Gau," Raikou says - buttery amusement, rough strain. He kisses the tip of Gau's nose and then breathes cool air on the damp imprint. His hands - on Gau's hips - are shaking.

Gau realizes that his own body is continuously shivering. His lips mouth mute orisons.

"- R-raikou-san," he manages on the third attempt. He sounds kind of like he's dying. (Which is appropriate - fuck, he's got to figure out how to stop thinking in puns, this is ridiculous -)

Raikou's eyes widen, his hips jerk a tiny fraction, and _sensation_ hits Gau like a freight train.

* * *

For a few insane moments, he teeters on the brink, resisting the pull - he doesn't know how he does it, but he resists. Quiet cries wrack his throat.

"Go ahead," Raikou whispers, somewhere in the vicinity of Gau's ears, his breath deliciously warm against Gau's skin. "You have my permission." He snakes a hand between their bodies and -

And, well. His hand is broad-palmed and long-fingered, strong enough to bend iron; but in this moment gentle, gingerly holding Gau as if he were made of glass. And his palm and fingertips are callused, from all the sword practice - rough and solid and real, and so warm, and - the _pressure_...

He thinks maybe he's whimpering -

\- Raikou does that _thing_ with his hips again, a sort of rolling snap - okay, he's _definitely_ whimpering -

"Go ahead, Gau," Raikou murmurs again, twisting his wrist - Gau sees crackling white across his vision.

He can hear himself sobbing, making all kinds of completely ridiculous noises, and he feels a tugging sensation, the rush of some internal vertigo - the weight of Raikou's eyes on his skin - _why do they call it the little death when it's so violent -_

He stops resisting whatsoever. It crashes through his helpless body like a seizure.

* * *

In a few heartbeats, Gau returns to himself - as tender and sticky as a bruised plum. He expends most of his renewed focus on remembering how to breathe.

Raikou is - _observing_ him, like an artist might survey their creation. He has settled into motionlessness - he's still impossibly hard, Gau can feel himself twitching against that hardness. (Orgasm appears to have relaxed those muscles a fraction.)

He tries to shift the position of his shoulders against the blankets and realizes that attempting to move is a total waste of effort. He feels... good. Utterly boneless. Relaxed. Completely insensate with pleasure.

\- oh my _god,_ he totally just blew his load all over his stomach and chest and also Raikou's _hand_. His semen is puddled in his bellybutton, leaving salty tracks as some of it trickles over his spare ribs and stains the sheets.

" - oh, _gross_ ," he croaks, a fresh blush blossoming across his entire face and neck, and then he winces. His throat is raw, he must have screamed. "U-um. Sorry about the - the mess..."

"No, no, it rather suits you," Raikou murmurs, _way too happy about this,_ and the blushing worsens tenfold as Gau stammers, grasping for a response _._ Being told you look good covered in spunk is _such_ a backhanded compliment, how do you even _begin_ to process it?

Raikou's eyes are ridiculously bright - his stonefaced composure melts into another one of his unfairly attractive smiles, wider and more high-spirited than Gau has ever seen him before, and just like that any sense of indignation vanishes. _All you have to do is smile like that, and I'll forgive you anything._

"You're cute when you can't think straight," Raikou says, and, circumventing protest, begins to press kisses to Gau's wordlessly stuttering mouth. "You're always cute, but you're especially adorable when you're too aroused to argue with me."

Gau makes an undignified squeaking noise as Raikou runs his hands up Gau's sides. _That's not fair - saying things like that -_

(And of course it isn't fair, but that's why Raikou does it.)

* * *

Raikou grips Gau's bound wrists, and pulls them over his head so that Gau's arms are wrapped around his neck - bringing their faces dangerously close. (If it were actually possible to drown in someone's eyes, Raikou's would be death traps.) He grabs Gau's thighs, pulling them up, and then leans back, to the effect that they end up with Gau straddling Raikou's lap, gravity forcing him down (kneeling) onto Raikou's erection.

"... Hnnngh," Gau sobs, clinging to Raikou's shoulders, legs trembling as his feet struggle to find purchase.

"Wait, wait," Raikou murmurs, balancing their collective body weight on one arm (the other is pressed to the small of Gau's back) as he turns in a half-circle. Even in the dim lighting, the muscles of his upper arm stand out in sharp relief, and Gau watches him strain in mute awe. He keeps his thighs pressed tightly against Raikou's sides; he doesn't want his legs to get in the way of this byzantine process.

Eventually Raikou settles at the head of the bed, propping himself up against the wall, and then folds his own legs in a comfortable sprawl. He looks up, meets Gau's expectant eyes with a half-smile. "Like this. So I can watch you."

"What - what should I do?" Gau asks.

"Oh, I wonder," Raikou muses, holding Gau at the waist with both hands, his thumbs rubbing gentle circles into Gau's (embarrassingly sticky) stomach.

(Contemplation looks good on him - despite the garish incongruity of his pink hair, his physiognomy is naturally Byronic, and readily lends itself to attractive brooding. Gau has watched him brood for years. It still makes his heart skip.)

Raikou blinks lazily after a moment or two, his eyes bottomless pits. He reaches up, runs his fingers through Gau's hair; smirks.

"...Well, how high can you raise yourself?"

* * *

Hesitantly, feeling about as ungainly as a newborn giraffe, Gau tries to press off the bed, his knees and feet in haphazard semi-coordination.

He then nearly collapses, gasping for air, because he was not prepared for the way it would feel to have Raikou sliding _out_ \- it's just as intense as the push in. His dick twitches - he chokes back a moan - he's getting hard again, _how is that even physically possible_?

"Uh - unnnh - n-not very far," he says, haunches trembling; he is leaning heavily on his forearms. He doubts his legs will support him at all. "Sorry -"

Raikou hisses a little under his breath when Gau moves, brow wrinkling. "No... it's not a problem," he pants, pressing a quick, breathless kiss to Gau's sternum. "I can... "

He trails off, shifts his grip to Gau's narrow hips, and his hands clamp down like a vise. His face is mildly flushed - spots of color on his face.

Gau whimpers, shaking. The pressure is just shy of painful, it'll probably bruise - and _dear god, Raikou is holding him up with just his hands._ Gau's legs hang like the limbs of a doll - they aren't bearing any of his weight. _Fuck_. He knew Raikou was strong, but -

" _There,"_ Raikou murmurs, self-satisfaction oozing into his voice. He lifts Gau up, pulling him almost off his dick entirely - Gau has to bite his lip to keep from howling - and then he gently drags him back down, re-impaling him, and Gau howls anyway.

(So much for 'not disturbing the neighbors'.)

* * *

It's difficult to balance - his torso wobbles until he steadies himself on Raikou's shoulders - and always, always, Raikou is staring at him, drinking in the way he squirms and gasps and twitches while Raikou moves within him.

Everything is _raw_. He can't stop sobbing for air - his useless legs jerk spasmodically every time Raikou scrapes against his prostate. Holy _fuck_.

" - god oh god, please, that's n-nnnngh, can't - _Raikou-san -_ uh - _uhhh -_ " he whimpers - and then he wails again, as Raikou jerks him up and yanks him back down even faster, increasing the tempo. "Please, please, _please please please_ ," he begs - for nothing in particular except _more_ \- there are tears streaking his face, they drip down his chin. Raikou kisses him, feverishly, and then begins to suck on Gau's nipples, biting him all over his pounding chest.

Gau's entire being shakes. " _Please -"_

There are dribs of sweat running down Raikou's chest, his arms - sweat beads on his forehead, and Gau breathes the light, seawater scent of it in arrhythmic gasps. Raikou is barely leaning against the wall (Gau can feel his abs shaking with the effort) - Raikou's hips are moving, slamming against Gau in a savage rhythm, his hands holding Gau still.

He murmurs tortured promises into Gau's skin, moans softly.

And Gau can hear his breath hitching. It is the most beautiful noise he has ever heard.

Raikou bites him harder, more desperately every moment, and grinds upwards while yanking Gau down onto his dick. Gau chokes on his endless litany of pleas - sees stars crackling in the edges of his vision - his toes curl, his fingernails bite into his palms, and his insides _clench_.

* * *

It feels like being ripped apart, and it feels insanely good, the pain a thick spice mixed in with electrocuting bliss. Through the thickest of mental hazes, Gau thinks that maybe they caught fire a while ago and just didn't notice - he wouldn't be surprised.

He presses a weak kiss to the crown of Raikou's head, breathing in the scent of his shampoo, the scent of his body, the smell of their sex. Pleasure lashes into him like a whip, flays him raw from the inside out - he is beyond caring about the neighbors, he is moaning and whimpering and sobbing in utter abandon.

The first orgasm could only exhaust him for so long, he's a teenaged boy - he feels a familiar tightening in the root of his body, he squirms and gasps - he doesn't have the self control to even tap the brakes on this one.

"I'm - I'm about to -" he stutters, his thighs shaking.

Raikou just looks up and _smoulders_ at him like a pink-haired incubus, interrupting Gau's frantic speech with his tongue.

Gau loses it.

* * *

In the middle of his full-body paroxysms, crying out in bittersweet release, Gau sees Raikou go over the edge, and the scene is inked into his mind:

His jaw relaxes, first, softening his expression. The hard, violent edge to his eyes flares up (he bites his lip) and then melts completely. He stares, wide-eyed, at Gau, and his hips jerk beyond his control, cementing their bodies together - his fingers clench like a vise around Gau's thoroughly abused hips. As Gau's muscles spasm, Raikou closes his eyes, and - without making so much as a sound - _breathes_.

And then the wave hits him.

* * *

There is nothing that really compares to having Raikou ejaculate inside him.

The expression on his face. The way he looks so stunned - the way his shoulders hunch and his eyes narrow. The throbbing pulses of liquid heat. The way Gau becomes suffused with a quiet emotion: protective, somehow.

The moment is brief, but it is - indescribably - priceless.

* * *

 _You and I_ , Gau thinks nonsensically, before exhaustion rolls his eyes back into his head, _are a nation of two._

He had an absurd dream once, of some far-off pulp fiction castle with an impossibly high ceiling. Everything was bathed in surreal light that spilled into the hall from no discernible direction; crumbling pillars and black marble as far as the eye could see.

Raikou sat alone on a throne of ebony.

Staring at grey nothing, he whispered, " _I am a tyrant, after all."_

He rested his thorn-crowned head on one weary palm. His voice echoed in the architectural graveyeard like the tolling of a death knell, and his hair slowly darkened to a miserable oily black - a color Raikou had vowed never to dye his hair.

" _But I elected you!"_ Gau protested - he was trapped in a vase of red spider lilies by Raikou's side, tiny and insignificant. Like Alice in her Wonderland - but there were no cakes or potions to change Gau's size. The crimson flower petals smothered his words, and Raikou never heard him, never noticed him beating against the glass.

He woke up with tears in his eyes that morning, for some reason - he chalked it up to crying too easily.

He is too thoroughly well-fucked to remember his dreams tonight, but they are assuredly much happier ones.

* * *

When Gau blinks his way into alterness the following morning, Raikou is sprawled all over him, and the midmorning sunlight is inching slowly across Raikou's bed. Gau is curled up like a cat, hands nestled together between their stomachs.

Their clothes from the night before lie in one untidy heap - he's going to have to throw out the shirt Raikou ruined, but today is - a Sunday, yes, so he can put the remaining clothes (and the bedsheets) in with the rest of the week's laundry. With that problem unravelled, Gau quietly takes stock of himself.

... He really is going to have trouble walking, judging from the ache in his lower body. There are finger-sized bruises girdling his hips, and his torso is _covered_ with bite marks and hickeys. His wrists are very mildly chafed - Raikou must have untied him at some point, and also mopped up the, uh, _mess_ they made.

He supposes it could have been a lot worse, for a first time. And it's a nice kind of pain - like the exhaustion of a fruitful day's work. All things considered, he feels remarkably refreshed.

"Good morning, Gau," Raikou breathes - Gau jumps, and then turns a fetching shade of scarlet. Raikou has propped himself up on one elbow - he reaches out and begins to trace meaningless patterns on Gau's skin with cool fingertips, looking vaguely troubled. "Are you ... all right?"

"Yeah," Gau breathes back. Mustering his (miniscule) reserves of courage, he inches forward and presses a quick kiss to Raikou's lips.

Raikou sighs; some of his nameless anxiety seems to dissipate, and he kisses Gau back, resuming his pattern-tracing. Oddly enough, Gau isn't worried. He feels secure, and peaceful - like he could handle anything. If something's wrong, Raikou will tell him.

They sit in silence too lovely to break for some while.

* * *

Gau is about to mention that they should probably get up sometime soon - he's getting kind of hungry - when Raikou's distant eyes narrow into focus, and his expression turns calculating.

"...You never asked me to stop," he points out, in a tone that politely suggests that he has doubts about Gau's mental health. He raises an eyebrow at Gau's state of dishabille.

"Because I didn't want you to stop," Gau agrees, distracted by the way Raikou's hair spills and stains his pillow pink. _Don't you ever get bed-hair? You must. And it's probably elegant bed-hair._

Raikou smiles, tweaks the end of his nose. "Gau," he says, almost teasingly, "what if I said I was going to cut off your arms and legs? What then?"

There's something in the set of Raikou's jaw that tells Gau that the conversation he's having with Raikou is much, much more serious than Raikou's tone would suggest.

So he doesn't laugh - he takes the question seriously. What _would_ he do? It's a bizarre thing to ask, but the practical implications aren't too difficult to fathom.

"... Well, you'd just have to leave me my writing hand," he says, smiling. "So I could still do a few chores without your help. And so I could touch you, Raikou-san," he adds, reaching out to tuck some of Raikou's hair behind his ear, pressing a lingering fond caress to his high cheekbone. "Apart from that, sure."

Startlingly, and without any warning, Raikou's shoulders begin to quiver. His lower lip trembles.

For a split second Gau thinks he might be laughing, but to his shock, heavy tears begin to well up in Raikou's eyes.

He catches a glimpse of them, rolling down Raikou's cheeks, before Raikou shrinks into himself and buries his face in his hands.

* * *

"W-what did I say? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to... What's the matter?" Gau frets, hugging him in an attempt to provide comfort.

Raikou whole body is frozen as stiff as a board. The tension strangling him is so immense he shakes in Gau's arms. Eventually, after a few long and agonizing minutes he returns the embrace, no longer leaking his silent tears, and he buries his face in Gau's shoulder.

"...I don't deserve you," he mutters brokenly, choked by his unvoiced sobs.

"Shhhh," Gau tells him, rubbing his shoulders, feeling the strong urge to defend Raikou's vulnerability - humbled that he is even allowed to see it. "Everything - everything's going to be okay."

 _"How can you say that,"_ Raikou rasps, his self-loathing rolling off of him in waves. The tremors increase. He holds Gau so tightly it becomes difficult to breathe. _"The things I've done."_

"Shh, shh. It's _okay_ , Raikou-san," Gau murmurs, running his fingers through Raikou's soft hair, holding him close. He has no idea what he's supposed to do - what he should say - so he just says whatever comes to mind.

"You're not a bad person, any more than I'm a bad person. And you're not - you're not a murderer, okay? There's difference between murder and - and execution. So don't talk about yourself like that. It's - it's okay, everything's okay, you don't need to blame yourself for it, you don't need to feel miserable, you deserve to be happy. And being with you makes me - it makes me happier than anything in the world, so don't say you don't deserve me, it doesn't make any sense."

Miraculously, he seems to strike a chord. The tension slowly eases out of Raikou's body. The horrible shaking stops and, gradually, the redness fades from his eyes; Gau murmurs _it's okay, it's okay_ , until Raikou starts to smile again.

It is his crooked amused smile, familiar and comforting; it thoroughly dispells the malingering sense of despair.

"Aren't you a clever little thing," he murmurs, and presses a kiss to the nose he tweaked earlier. Gau can't help but grin like an idiot. He's never going to tire of Raikou's kisses.

"Well, I have my moments."

* * *

"... Forgive me my hysterics," Raikou says, very solemnly. Gau rolls his eyes, and mutters something about the propensity for tantrums running in the Shimizu family, at which point Raikou punches him in the shoulder and he laughs.

They sit up in bed, stretching their limbs - Gau appreciates the burn in his body. Each twinge of discomfort recalls to him the way Raikou inflicted it - it's going to be weeks before he manages to stop blushing.

"... thank you, Gau," Raikou says, hands folded in his lap. His words are embarrasingly heartfelt - uncharacteristically open.

And Gau is not precisely sure what Raikou is referring to. Existing? Soothing Raikou's existential crisis? ... The sex? He decides to accept it as a blanket statement of gratitude for everything Raikou might wish to thank him for. "You're welcome," he says, politely, bowing his head.

"I am quite glad," Raikou continues, "that I fell in love with you."

\- And as if that weren't a gigantic bombshell of a statement to spring on someone, he swings his feet over the side of the bed, pokes through his closet, and shrugs into an old cotton yukata with an aura of innocent nonchalance, giving Gau a casual over-the-shoulder glance.

Gau manages to stop floundering, regains his capacity to speak. He is the approximate shade and temperature of boiled lobster. "You - you can't just _say_ that, right out of the blue, and -"

Raikou flings something at him - it hits him square in the face, interrupting his rant, and upon closer inspection it proves to be a tightly-folded yukata.

"Put that on, Gau," he tells Gau - really, like that wasn't obvious - "and prepare breakfast, I'm getting hungry."

For a moment or Gau really wants to protest that - in fact, he's already forming the words - but then Raikou _smiles_ at him, and if his usual dazzling supermodel grin could be priced at a million, this smile - shy, happy, hopeful, sweet, breathtakingly beautiful - is definitely worth a billion.

"... fine," he mumbles, blushing even harder. "If you help me get to the kitchen."

"You _really_ can't walk?" Raikou says, flushing a barely detectible shade of pale pink, fascinated by his success and extremely pleased with himself. "Fine, I'll carry you to the kitchen and you can tell me how to make eggs."

Gau remembers, suddenly, the last time Raikou attempted to cook, and he blanches.

"Um... maybe today is a cereal-for-breakfast kind of day," he delicately suggests - Raikou bridles at that, and they get into an amusing mock-argument about it. The day is warm, beautiful - it's an auspicious start.

According to a mutual unspoken agreement, they don't talk about the fact that they're now essentially a couple - it's too overwhelming a topic - but one of their zanier and more nearsighted neighbors congratulates Gau on the energetic consumation of their marriage. Gau has a mild panic attack - he privately resigns himself to never feeling dignified again. When he hears of the exchange Raikou cheerfully suggests a gag - Gau also resigns himself to having a lot of mild panic attacks.

By noon, Gau is shuffling around the kitchen and hanging up laundry to dry, and Raikou is practicing kendo forms in the lot outdoors, and they have gotten back into the swing of life-as-usual. Except now, instead of just hitting him over the head, Raikou kisses him, and instead of kicking himself in the shins and repeatedly telling himself not to think about _stuff_ , Gau just blushes a lot.

If they were a regular couple - if they were normal people - this wouldn't be so absolutely wonderful.

 _Well, screw 'normal',_ Gau decides, and calls his pink-haired samurai boyfriend in for lunch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Relevant: Gau thinks of the sin eater as being a mash-up of a bodhisattva - aka, Buddhist 'saints' who pledge to condemn themselves to the cycle of suffering until all souls reach enlightenment - and a glutton. He is here referring not to your standard "glutton", but to the court gluttons of Ancient Egypt, who were trained to eat anything for the amusement of the rich on command. Yes, I am the most pretentious snob ever.
> 
> Those of you who remember this being posted on the Pit and on LJ may be thinking: what do you mean, 2/3?
> 
> :D
> 
> ;D


End file.
